Open Hands
by KLPeterson
Summary: The relationship between Casavir and Katriona is explored. Casavir has fallen ill, and Katriona must go through great lengths to save him.


Author's note:

I wanted this story to convey my appreciation and respect for the character of Casavir, whose tale for some reason stirred my romantic heart. As I started to wrap my mind around the story I had planned, I realized that I wouldn't or couldn't handle Casavir lightly- in my romantic history and experience there are two kinds of romances- the physical kind of the here and now, and the transcendent. I saw and still see Casavir as special, someone to write into legend, an epic character whose beauty goes beyond the physical. I had more of an emotional response to his appeal than a carnal one. And so what you'll see here is just one view of him, but it's the way I see him.

--

The witch's mind began to stretch out across the vast expanse of the man's soul. He lay beside her in the bed of his hostess which she had long vacated in favor of a chair nearby. Seemingly asleep he lay, though Iseri knew it to be the mere surface of the reality that lay beneath what could be seen. She had one of her cool hands placed upon his forehead which burned with fever, while her other hand grasped his own. Warm, too warm. The warrior woman Katriona knelt by the other side of the bed with her hand entwined in his. Occasionally she would steal glances at the witch woman in flashes of weakening hope. Iseri, able to exist in both worlds simultaneously, felt the bitter waves of fear washing off of the woman, but could not allow herself to focus on Katriona's silent misery. She loved this knight, Casavir. Clearly she always had.

Iseri nodded as if to steel herself. This journey would show whether or not he had fully entered the spiritlands beyond their reach. For too long Casavir had grown inexplicably weaker and weaker despite the attentions of many a concerned cleric or consulted mage. Her own fee had been exorbitant, naturally- the trip from Rashemen had taken entirely too long, even when magical means were employed. Her services as a hathran did not come cheaply. The red haired woman had expended all but the last of her financial resources in the effort to save the life of this one man. Such fierce determination made the shaman curious as to what sort of nature could have brought forth such devotion. She bent closer to the man's face, inches from his lips as if she would bestow a kiss upon his unmoving lips. He still breathed, that much was certain. Iseri's traveling companion watched all of this from the back of the sickroom. Her role would be to keep the proceedings from being interrupted. She alone knew the dangers should the witch be disturbed.

"Daughter, do not," she said. Katriona had reacted to the thin stream of what appeared to be smoke rising from between the lips of the sleeping man. One hand outstretched as if to capture the hathran's hand from his forehead. Hearing the rebuke, she had paused, then nodded meekly. At least the woman knew when she had reached the limits of her own wisdom. That, the companion reflected, was wisdom in and of itself. "The breath of life shows that your man still lives, Lady."

Katriona blushed as deeply as her ashen, sunken cheeks would allow. Gathered strands of her unkempt hair had fallen over her eyes, but she could not conceal the effect that the statement had on her.

_She does not know yet that this man is hers. _The knowledge changed much. She whispered in some unknown language to the hathran, who was already descending into her trance.

"You will come with me, daughter," Iseri said to the weeping Katriona.

_His_ _soul is light and the light is his soul. It is clear, it runs pure as water from the source. _

Katriona felt herself drifting into a sense of otherness. The part of her that dreamed, that saw, that sensed, was floating away. Strangely, she felt no fear. Instead, she became aware that she was _seeing _without the use of her eyes, as if she had been blind for a lifetime and could finally touch the unknown. But here was the overwhelming presence and essence of Casavir; it was all around her and it _was_ her. He surrounded her as he never had when he was flesh. She could smell the freshness of his being like both a soft mist and a firm embrace. _ Casavir, I see you, I see you, gods, I breathe you. Oh, Casavir. Casavir, I love you. _Here in this other place the witch woman held her by the hand, allowing her to see with her spirit. They stood beside a lake and the lake was more pristine than any she'd ever seen. The lake that soothed when its waters touched her feet. She sobbed, and she fell to her knees, overtaken by the power of goodness and honor that she knew was the man she loved.

_O great heart, o hero. _Poetry sprung to her lips and ran from her eyes. She looked out across the waters and could see a dim figure on horseback. The black horse reared back, screaming, kicking its forelegs into the air as if knowing itself unworthy to hold such a rider. Then the rider came into focus at last. He held the beast fast under the strength of his body and his hands. Katriona could see the rider, and it was Casavir, rays of light from an unseen sky streaming off of his blinding armor. His eyes were bound with a strip of white cloth.

"Justice," the witch said. "Do you see? He stands in judgement of his own soul." She lifted her staff into her hands, turning to Katriona, who could not take her eyes from the glory that was Casavir.

"You must look away, Lady, or you will become him." Iseri now wore a mask as if she could not bear to look herself. It was as if the mask had always been part of her, but could not be seen.

"Will he die?" Katriona choked through her tears. "Can he be saved...from justice?"

"The chains on his soul are of his own forging," the witch answered, as if this made all things clear. As the staff rose, so did the scene change. So easily were the two women whisked away back to the sickroom and to corporeal form that Katriona was overcome with dizziness. Slamming back into her own body was a shock unlike any other she'd experienced. To be a part of Casavir so wholly and then to be without him...this was isolation and emptiness that could barely be borne.

"He has done nothing!" Her words were impassioned, full of the agony of her helplessness. "He gave everything that he had to anyone who asked it of him. Even his own god knows that he is innocent! How dare he judge him. How dare he!"

"Woman, would you judge him? Do you dare to judge him?"

"I do." Katriona shook with fury. "I do!"

The witch straightened her back suddenly and stood up from the bed. "Even at the cost of your own soul, should you be wrong? Will you stand in judgement of this man?"

The question hung in the air between them. "_Be certain, daughter, be certain_," the witch thought quietly. Fates, do not let her do this thing. But the woman would. She could see as much. Did the paladin's god hear such pleas on his servant's behalf? Could he involve himself so in the lives of mortals? Only for a great hero. Only for the most favored of his sons. And was this man worthy? Was anyone worthy of a god's notice or concern?

"Then speak the words, daughter. Speak your judgement."

"Upon my soul, I swear that this man is innocent."

"Now turn your eyes inward and see." The god would hear her now, if in fact he listened. If he was judged guilty, he would walk forward into that swallowing darkness never to return from it. If, however, in the face of his own assumption of guilt, Tyr judged him to be innocent of wrongdoing, a sign would come. Katriona's head went limp across Casavir's broad chest, her hair soaked with tears. She was in that other place, for good or for ill.

"Now speak, daughter. You will see either great light or great darkness. The god will give you nothing or he will speak blessing upon this man."

"I see... something. I can see someone. It's the Knight Captain that walked beside him. The one that died... he comes from the darkness. He was a priest of Tyr, himself, while he lived."

"The god takes his form," said the witch in a voice of soft wonder. "Tell me, what does he offer?"

Katriona lifted her head and met her eyes directly. There was a sightlessness now in her gaze, though she regarded the witch as clearly as if she still had vision. "He stops before me. He opens wide his hands."

"Ahhhhh..." Iseri felt the force of rushing waters come upon her. A blinding light filled the room. It spread from the top of the paladin's head down throughout his body in a coursing blanket that did not stop until it reached his feet. The witch instinctively covered her eyes.

"The god has done him great honor." Her voice trembled in the face of such power. She felt as though she stood in a massive empty chamber alone with only the deity's judgement regarding her. "Rightly have you judged this man's soul, Lady, and rightly does the god acknowledge his servant."

_Tyr hath but one hand. _The knowledge sat like a stone in her heart, but the Knight Captain only smiled, continuing to open wide his two hands to the woman who had once served under him. He was not the god's avatar, she realized. The avatar of Tyr would not have been able to extend both of his hands. She knew then that He had looked fully upon and judged his servant, Casavir, and that this would be his judgement.

Then the Knight Captain inclined his head to the side, as if to listen to someone behind him.

"_I have seen, and judged," _the gentle voice came. It was just at the edge of her hearing. "_This man, my servant, is free of blame. He is to take up his shield and hammer once more. He will be known henceforth as the knight of the Open Hands, for he has given freely of himself without asking in return."_

--

"What did you see?" Katriona asked, sitting at the edge of her rocking chair. It was in a patch of sun by the window. At long last, the requested assistance had come from their old allies in Neverwinter. She now had the funds to hire care for both herself and the man who daily recovered from his illness. For four days Casavir remained too weak to rise from his bed. On the fifth morning, when she'd asked her maid how he fared, the maid did not return to her rooms with an answer. Instead, Katriona heard heavy footfalls coming down the hallway, and her heart quickened. "_If you are well, Casavir, then I can bear this," _she thought. Because she stood in judgement with the eyes of Tyr, she would no longer see the light of day. She could feel, though, and feel she did. Casavir's soft breathing filled the space before her. He was kneeling before her. She was certain that if she just reached out her hands, she would be able to touch his face.

"I saw you, Katriona. I see you. I see you and only you." His voice had a quaver to it that she didn't recognize. She felt herself be lifted up out of her chair into the press of his arms, and then his lips firmly but gently pressed to hers. His face was wet with the tracks of tears. She wrapped her arms around his head and neck and began to weep herself at the memory of his startlingly blue eyes, and how they glistened when emotion took him. "Oh, Casavir," she whispered quietly.

He kissed her sightless eyes. "Forgive me for not seeing you. Forgive me." With these words, all of the years of his blindness toward her were lost as if they had never been. Her secret pain erased, the agony of bearing her love in silence gone. And then she smiled, and knew in her heart that blindness was really not such a price to pay.


End file.
